Nuclear Fusion - So, how we doing?

This seems like a very dangerous thing to be messing with though. Much like the hadron collider. Wouldn't it make sense to do these experiments or ehatever in space? Even Doc Oc couldn't control it.

Taking ITER for example, it's being built in France where they have very strong nuclear safety rules. There's a section on safety here.

In ITER, a runaway reaction is impossible
Can a Fukushima-type accident happen at ITER? Absolutely not. The fundamental differences in the physics and technology used in fusion reactors make a fission-type nuclear meltdown or a runaway reaction impossible. The fusion process is inherently safe.

In a fusion reactor, there will only be a limited amount of fuel (less than four grams) at any given moment. The reaction relies on a continuous input of fuel; if there is any perturbation in this process and the reaction ceases immediately. Even in the event of the total loss of the cooling function, ITER's confinement barriers would not be affected. The temperatures of the vacuum vessel that provides the first confinement barrier would under no circumstances reach the melting temperatures of the materials.

etc.
 
Then we'll need to find another way to cool the flux capacitor to prevent the container from increasing its trajectory speed to 88mph and send us all back in time :eek:
 
I thought this was not possible, I'm sure I read a few years ago that it was found to be impossible to do. Or maybe that was cold fusion?

If this happens I imagine it would make space travel a hell of a lot more viable?

This seems like a very dangerous thing to be messing with though. Much like the hadron collider. Wouldn't it make sense to do these experiments or ehatever in space? Even Doc Oc couldn't control it.

Cold fusion is impossible.

Space travel:
If we could make a viable reactor, we would have to engineer a small and physically durable one to not need an maintenance/fixing after accelerating off the ground. We would also need to come up with some miracle methods for magnetic and plasma confinement without causing the rocket to weigh as much as a skyscraper with the reactor.


Dangerous:

Why would fusion experiments be dangerous, also why is LHC dangerous?

How would you even begin to build this stuff in space? The funding and attention for fusion is considerable but not enough to successfully create a viable and stable reactor for practical use any time soon, i don't think trying to develop one in the most impractical place possible would make it easier.


The fear is much with this one.
 
I don't fear it. I actualy wish they would rush a bit more I want to see this tech before I die.

I may have mixed fusion and fission.

Maybe we need to take a leap and make space more feasible.

We all know this stuff isn't going to take off until all fossil fuels are gone.
 
Space travel:
If we could make a viable reactor, we would have to engineer a small and physically durable one to not need an maintenance/fixing after accelerating off the ground. We would also need to come up with some miracle methods for magnetic and plasma confinement without causing the rocket to weigh as much as a skyscraper with the reactor.
Problems easily overcome by building them in space, whilst keeping a conventional rocket to the space station.

That or a space elevator of course ;).
 
Building on in space raises just another set of impossible problems. We shouldn't be looking at doing stuff like this in space until we make some significant advancements on the ground. Building anything in space requires so much money/time and planning, it would be a waste of precious funding which we need to develop fusion before even considering its practical uses and application beyond power delivery.

Or would we just use a space elevator to get the materials and physicists up there?
 
Taking ITER for example, it's being built in France where they have very strong nuclear safety rules. There's a section on safety here.



etc.

There is a huge difference between fission and fusions power tht makes fusion inherently safe. Basically in Fission power stations all the complexity is trying to stop a runaway fission process from turning the power station into an atomic bomb. The problem with Getting fusion power station viable is because it has the exact opposite problem, it sis really difficult to get the Fusion process to continue for more than a few seconds. All of the complexity in a Fusion reactor is in trying to maintain the fusion process, not prevent a runaway chain reaction.

it was for that reason why the very early research into nuclear power stations, before any fission stations existed commercially, was in to fusion reactors. It was deemed the safest and cleanest route, but ultimately is too safe, so safe it is almost impossible to make work at commercially viable efficiency.

Fusion bombs work by putting huge amounts of nuclear material together at once, don't do that and you have no bomb.
 
Cold fusion is impossible.
:

It was one of them command and conquer games that got me looking into cold fusion.

Just been reading on wiki that thorium reactors should be doable now. It said the first actual working one was being built in 2016. Not the research or anything it suggested that was all done and it was just for the way to build them for public use ( can't think of the proper term ).
 
Cold fusion is impossible.

Or is it? There was a lot of suppression of research into it when it originally hit the headlines, failures to reproduce, suppression, ad-hoc debunking and general witch-hunting of scientists willing to research this field followed. Yet it still exists and despite having funding and research continually suppressed by the major academia and publishers, it quietly flourishes and continues to attract new interest, especially by private investors.

A link to read if you are interested in the efforts of scientists to have their valid, scientific research be heard above the cries of abhorrence and disbelief http://www.skepticalaboutskeptics.org/examining-skeptics/brian-josephson-pathological-disbelief/

Hot fusion is massively expensive and seems as though it's being used as an example by the energy industry to demonstrate that clean, efficient energy, is yet again, "impossible" (or extremely expensive still).

I view hot fusion, efficient, cheap, imminently available hot fusion anyway, to also be impossible in that case. But we shall see won't we?
 
Theoretically impossible is different to practically impossible.

None of my lecturers or colleagues found the practical application of cold fusion feasible. Nothing I have seen or read would suggest otherwise. I would love it to be possible, it is thought of as a sort of holy grail within the industry, much like a cure all disease jab in medicine. No amount of media suppression or government discouragement would successfully silence the physics community if it was possible.

Possibly in the distant future when we wont even require cold fusion might we find a reliable method to apply the theory behind it, but i wouldn't hold my breath. There has been many false claims on cold fusion over the years. Countries who are quite obviously incapable of such technology are often the loudest preachers (North Korea, am Looking at you!)
 
Or is it? There was a lot of suppression of research into it when it originally hit the headlines, failures to reproduce, suppression, ad-hoc debunking and general witch-hunting of scientists willing to research this field followed. Yet it still exists and despite having funding and research continually suppressed by the major academia and publishers, it quietly flourishes and continues to attract new interest, especially by private investors.

A link to read if you are interested in the efforts of scientists to have their valid, scientific research be heard above the cries of abhorrence and disbelief http://www.skepticalaboutskeptics.org/examining-skeptics/brian-josephson-pathological-disbelief/

Hot fusion is massively expensive and seems as though it's being used as an example by the energy industry to demonstrate that clean, efficient energy, is yet again, "impossible" (or extremely expensive still).

I view hot fusion, efficient, cheap, imminently available hot fusion anyway, to also be impossible in that case. But we shall see won't we?

I couldn't take that site seriously as soon as I saw an article about psychic phenomina and Psi.
 
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